Steam blanchers are conventionally used in the food processing industry to blanch or cook a continuous throughput of food product such as, for example, pasta.
A typical blancher may employ a rotating perforated drum which is suspended within a tank partially filled with water. As the drum rotates food products are advanced from an inlet to the discharge of the tank via mechanical helical lifts or other means. Steam is injected through a manifold into the bottom of the tank to heat the water and blanch the food product. To make more efficient use of processing space and equipment, it would be desirable to achieve higher throughputs of food product for a blancher of a particular size. However, many food products and pasta in particular are subject to adhesion to one another when they are placed in contact with one another during the blanching process. Thus, if too great a quantity of food product is loaded into a blancher, sticking, tearing, and other damage to the food product may occur. Such damage is highly undesirable when a uniform food product is sought to be produced. The injection of steam into the blancher tank serves to agitate the food product somewhat helps to avoid adhesion of one article to another. However, the steam is introduced into the tank only intermittently. A continuous introduction of steam or increased duration of steam introduction will overheat the food product and result in spoilage.
What is needed is a steam blancher which allows increased throughput of food product while maintaining the integrity and uniformity of each article.